Exchange of Hearts by N.R. Walker

Author:N.R. Walker [Walker, N.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mm, Gay Romance, new adult
Published: 2015-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

LONDON

I don’t know how or when it happened, but the first year flew.

I had no delusions it was going to be easy. I knew I was in for hellish studies and would need a commitment to my music that I wouldn’t have thought humanly possible. Doing my bachelor’s degree at London’s Royal Academy of Music was far and away the most daunting thing I’d ever done. I had grades to make to keep my scholarship and expectations to exceed.

I also knew that living with Levi wasn’t going to be easy either. When he’d said he lived above the garage, I pictured a large loft-style open area. Apparently garages in Australia were bigger than those in England, because if I stood with my arms outstretched, I could almost touch the side walls. It was a long narrow room with a double bed up one end, a lounge and TV in the middle, and a bathroom at the other end. It was smaller than a one-bedroom studio, but it was ours and it was perfect.

His university course was demanding as well, and we knew our different schools would lead us in different directions, timetables, social circles. Everything was different. The time we had together when not studying for exams was limited, and most of the time we were both exhausted.

But somehow we made it work.

I loved my music more now than I ever had.

I also loved Levi in ways that surprised me.

No, life with him wasn’t easy. It wasn’t perfect. Life wasn’t some soap opera episode of Gays of Our Lives. It was real, and sometimes brutally unforgiving. Some days there were arguments. Some days we didn’t see each other at all. But some days we laughed and talked until after midnight and did the tourist, sight-seeing thing for me. Some days we made love for hours and lounged in front of a movie, wrapped around each other.

Life in England was more different to Australia than I realised it would be. The weather mostly, and Levi would often joke that me wearing so many layers was akin to a game of pass the parcel—just more wrapping to take off, he’d say. But it was living with his family that I found the strangest. I’d lived at a boarding school for the last six years, and before that we had a nanny, so to have an actual mum and dad around took some getting used to. Sitting around a table and eating as a family was something I thought only happened in movies, but apparently it was common practice in the Aston household.

Levi’s family took me in like I was one of them, from the very first day. His brother Jared was funny, and his sister Lila clearly thought we were cute together because she told us at least once a week. His dad would cuss at the football on TV, and his mum would hug and feed me whenever she saw me. I had to admit, I loved it.

And maybe living

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